


Friendly Neighborhood Craft Project

by whumphoarder



Series: Cassie & Peter Being Buds [2]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Babysitting, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Iron Dad, Irondad, Peter Parker Has Always Been Tony's Biggest Fan, Peter Parker is good with kids, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, craft projects, i feel like i need to rebrand myself now, seriously this has like 2 seconds of whump in it, this isn't what the people signed up for with a name like whumphoarder, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 21:23:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whumphoarder/pseuds/whumphoarder
Summary: Through a convoluted series of events, ten-year-old Cassie Lang is in New York and missing a costume on Halloween. Peter, his aunt, and his long suffering mentor all come to her rescue, hot glue guns a-blazing.





	Friendly Neighborhood Craft Project

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally my third Halloween story this year lmao

“Ow ow ow!” Peter yelped, yanking back his hot glue covered fingers from the half-finished costume. He held them to his lips and blew on them quickly.

With a sigh, Tony grabbed the teenager’s wrist and dunked his hand in a shallow bowl of ice water that was sitting on the table.

Peter exhaled in relief. “Ah… Thanks. That’s better.”

Scott Lang glanced up from the piece of felt he was cutting out. “You just had that ready?” he asked, amused.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him wield a glue gun,” Tony said with an eye-roll.

Peter removed his hand from the water. “Hey, Ms. Warren gave me extra credit on that nanotech diorama you helped me with, so it was totally worth not feeling my fingertips for a few days,” he said, peeling the dried glue off his burned fingers.

“Does anybody have any glitter?” Cassie interrupted.

Scott quirked an eyebrow. “Why do you need glitter, Peanut? I thought we were making an ant.”

“We are. He needs sparkles,” she said simply.

Without looking up from the felt-covered wire antennae she was sewing to the head of the costume, May instructed, “Peter, I think we have some glitter in the drawer next to the sink.”

“Got it,” Peter said, jumping up from the table.

Technically, their current crisis was Luis’s fault.

Yesterday, Tony had contacted Ant-Man regarding an upcoming mission with the Avengers. They would be infiltrating a bunker suspected of housing illegal alien weapons, and Scott’s ability to shrink to an almost undetectable size would be vital in getting them past the hefty security detail.

The only issue was that Cassie was staying with Scott that week and he wasn’t too keen on cutting their father-daughter time short. So since Peter and Cassie had hit it off so well last time, Tony had told him to just bring the kid along to New York.

Predictably, Cassie had been thrilled at the idea—what ten-year-old isn’t up for flying on a private jet? And because it would be over Halloween, Aunt May had even agreed to host Cassie at the apartment so that Peter could take her trick-or-treating around their neighborhood. That was why Cassie had packed the meticulously detailed homemade costume she and her mother had spent the last several weeks designing—a period-accurate Anne Boleyn, the infamously beheaded second wife of King Henry VIII.

(According to Scott, the kid was on a bit of a history kick).

But then Scott’s friend, Luis, who was dropping the Langs off at the airport that afternoon, had forgotten her suitcase in the van.

And that was how, at 5:30 pm on October 31st, less than six hours before a high-stakes mission was set to begin, Tony and Scott found themselves seated at the Parker’s kitchen table, assisting the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and his unusually crafty aunt in throwing together something for Cassie to wear that night.

**X**

“I’ve gotta say, Peter, this really brings me back...” May mused. Having reached the end of her row of stitches, she tied off the thread and snipped it. “Remember Halloween 2012?”

Peter snorted out a laugh. “How could I forget?”

“What happened in 2012?” Scott asked curiously, fishing through a bag of googly eyes.

May smirked. “Maybe you should ask Mr. Stark.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony could see Peter’s eyes widen as he shook his head at her subtly.  

Tony paused his hot gluing of the thorax to the abdomen. “2012...?” he questioned. He definitely hadn’t known Peter back in 2012—and honestly, thank god for that because Tony was a mess back then. He was still a mess now, but a more contained one.

“You got funky with the colors that year,” May went on. Her eyes were still fixed on the project in front of her, so she didn’t appear to notice Peter’s sudden discomfort. “Seemed like you were coming out with a new suit every week.”

Peter’s cheeks reddened. “May, _don’t_ …” he said under his breath.

Tony frowned in confusion. “Hang on, are you talking about my armor?”

She raised her eyebrows at her nephew. “You mean he doesn’t _know_?”

“Know what?” Cassie piped up.

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” Peter quickly muttered.

May’s eyes sparkled in the same way that Tony had seen Peter’s do so many times as she hopped up from the table. “I’m getting the scrapbook!” she announced.

“Oh my god, Aunt May, no!” the thoroughly embarrassed teenager groaned after her.

Retrieving a dark green photo album from a shelf in the living room, she shot the boy a mischievous smile. “Peter was your biggest fan,” May explained to Tony, bringing the book back to the group. “Ever since he was eight, his costume each year was modeled after the latest Iron Man suit.”

Tony turned to look at Peter pointedly. “He _definitely_ neglected to mention this fact to me.”

Peter covered his face with his hands and groaned. “I am regretting everything.”

May cracked the book open and set it down on the table. Tony immediately started flipping through it, with Cassie and Scott peering curiously over his shoulder. The first picture showed eight-year-old Peter grinning at the camera, wearing his version of what must have been the Mark 3—a red sweatsuit with gold and black fabric paint details, along with a homemade arc reactor stuck to the front that appeared to be made of papier-mâché.

“Now I understand the glorified pajamas you were running around in when we first met,” Tony remarked.

“Hey, I liked my original Spider-Man suit...” Peter mumbled. “It was really comfortable.”

“Pajamas usually are,” Tony agreed.

Cassie giggled.

Tony turned his attention to the next photo. This time, over little Peter’s sweatsuit was a painted cardboard armor version of the Mark 5—Tony’s first portable emergency suit.

May pointed to the large leather briefcase the boy was holding in the picture. “Ben took him to six different thrift stores before they found that case.”

“Well it had to be able to fit all the armor inside,” Peter defended.

“But weren’t you wearing the suit the whole time you were trick-or-treating?” Scott pointed out. “No one would know whether or not it all fit inside.”

“ _Thank you_ , Scott,” May said in exasperation. “That is what we told him about fifty times.”

“Yeah but _I_ would have known,” Peter argued.

Cassie, who was twirling a pipe cleaner around a pencil, grinned at him. “You’re a nerd, Peter.”

He shot her a look of mock indignation. “Um, excuse me, who is the one currently building a giant ant costume out of hot glue and felt?”

“You are.” She stuck out her tongue.

“She’s not wrong,” Tony allowed, flipping to the next page. That year was the Mark 6.

“Is this all made from duct tape?” Tony asked, pointing at the semi-reflective costume.

Peter nodded. “I think it ended up taking like thirty-nine rolls.”

“Holy shit, kid,” Tony remarked. The level of detail was incredible, especially given that Peter had been only ten at the time.

May let out a quick laugh. “We banned that construction material after 2011.”

“Yeah…” Peter rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Turns out duct tape is kinda expensive in mass quantities…”

“I learned how to make a duct tape wallet at summer camp,” Cassie said proudly. “We could decorate it however we wanted so mine has a unicorn pooping a rainbow on the front.”

“Ooh, nice.” Peter grinned at her. “We should make one of those for Mr. Stark.”

“Why?” Cassie quirked her head. “Because he’s crazy rich?”

Scott awkwardly cleared his throat. “Uh, Peanut, that’s not really polite...”

“What?” she said with a shrug. “He is.”

Tony mirrored the little girl’s shrug to her dad. “I am.”

“Okay, okay, here’s 2012,” May announced, flipping the page.

Instead of one shot of the completed costume like there had been for the previous years, 2012 consisted of a whole series of pictures, mostly featuring eleven-year-old Peter sitting at tables or on the floor, surrounded by craft supplies and in various stages of costume construction. In the first photo, Peter was grinning excitedly as he carved out pieces of EVA foam for the suit’s body.

“That was sixth grade,” May said, pointing at the picture. “He’d just started at his new middle school and he was dead set on winning their annual costume contest.”

The teenager’s already flushed cheeks went a shade darker. “I thought it would make me popular…” he mumbled.

Scott snorted. “How did that go?”

“Not great,” Peter admitted. “But on the plus side, when some kids tried to shove me into a locker after I won, my suit was so big that I didn’t fit. And then Mr. Rojas, the custodian, yelled at them and they got detention for like a month. So I guess it all worked out in the end.”

In the next picture, Peter’s grin was obscured by a white mask as he and his uncle were now spray painting the same formerly red-painted foam pieces over with silver and gold—the Mark 12, if Tony remembered correctly.

“I had started building it in June,” Peter explained. “I really wanted to make sure it was your latest design, but you just kinda started shooting them out, so I had to keep overhauling it…”

In the next photo, they were changing it back to red again. Then it was back to silver and Peter was shown wiring the suit with LED christmas lights for the Mark 16.

Tony flipped the page. Mark 22—the suit had gone back to red again and Peter was adding flame decals to the legs. A picture later, he was covering everything in camouflage print duct tape for what Tony recognized as the Mark 23. Then he had painted it black and was hot gluing a cardboard replica of the Mark 25’s enhanced weapons system onto the suit’s arm.

Tony’s head was swirling as he flipped through page after page. In the next photo, Peter was sawing the newly affixed guns back off and changing it to blue and orange for the Mark 27.

After that was the Mark 28 and he was spray painting the suit orange and black. Mark 30—blue and silver. Mark 31—green. Then back to red for the Mark 33.

“I thought the orange and black one was festive,” May commented.

In each shot, Peter’s grin progressively faded, like a depressing animation flip-book. By the Mark 41, the eleven-year-old was practically scowling. Tony could relate.

Cassie’s voice, softer than he’d heard it before, was what broke him from his thoughts. “Mr. Stark, why did you make so many suits?” she asked innocently.

Memories flooded back to Tony of that dark time period of his life when he would spend multiple days at a time holed up in his workshop in such manic stages of anxious creation that new designs rolled out every few days. He wasn’t sleeping—wasn’t eating. He remembered the constant jittery-sick feeling of so much caffeine coursing through his veins that it was more efficient to track his coffee consumption by the pot rather than the cup. He remembered the panic attacks. Remembered the nightmares.

Finally, he settled on the simplest truth. “It was a rough year, kid. I was trying to protect people—went a little overboard.”

Cassie nodded thoughtfully. After a beat, she suggested, “Maybe you should have just taken karate.”

Peter barked out a laugh, and with that the spell was broken.

**X**

Cassie’s costume was pretty much completed at that point. As soon as the adults finished putting the finishing touches on the eccentric-looking sparkly ant’s body, Cassie took it with her into the bathroom to change.

“So it turned out that Mr. Rojas was a pretty cool guy,” Peter explained. “He had a brother who ran a 3D printing business, so the next couple years of costumes were kinda awesome.”

He showed off a truly stunning 3D printed plastic version of the Mark 42.

“How did you make the arc reactor?” Tony asked in amazement, pointing at the glowing replica in the armor chest piece.

“Uh…” Peter ticked each item off on his fingers as he recounted them. “A hot glue stick, some bronze wire, metal wires, popsicle sticks, a zip tie, an old DVD case, a flashlight, some LED strip, and silver foil.”

The last picture Peter showed him in the album featured the Mark 44 Hulkbuster armor—also 3D printed—and a fourteen-year-old Peter smiling next to Ned, who was decked out in green body paint and purple stretchy pants.

“That had to be 2015…” Tony mused. “Did we miss one? What happened in 2014?” He tried to flip back to the previous page, but Peter snatched the album back from him.

“Nothing happened,” Peter said quickly, shutting the book. “Just didn’t go that year.”

“Lies!” May laughed at him, trying to pry the album back from her nephew’s grip. She threw Tony a look over her shoulder and explained, “Teenage rebellion is what happened, Mr. Stark. I’m just thankful he never went emo.”

“May, no, c’mon,” Peter begged, resisting her attempts.

Just then, Cassie emerged from the bathroom in her positively ridiculous-looking ant costume, grinning broadly. “It’s so ugly!” she declared.

“No, no Cassie, it’s awesome!” Peter immediately tried to reassure at the same time that his aunt argued, “Nooo, it’s got character!”

But Scott just laughed and shook his head slowly. “It sure is, Peanut,” he agreed brightly.

“I love it!” Cassie exclaimed, giving them a twirl. “I’m gonna go facetime my mom and show her!” She raced off to find her phone.

While Peter sat there grinning at her, Tony seized the opportunity to snatch the book from the distracted teenager’s hands.

Peter let out a yelp of surprise. “Wait, no!” he tried to protest.

With a smirk, Tony flipped it open to the one remaining page and took in the image of thirteen-year-old Peter. His expression immediately soured. “Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me."

Peter’s voice had risen about two octaves. “I can explain, Mr. Stark!” he squeaked.

Tony flipped around the open scrapbook to display the photo, a look of utter betrayal on his face. “You went as _Captain America_?!”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are so so appreciated!! I love getting feedback—it makes my heart happy :)
> 
> (If you have nothing in particular to say about the story, feel free to tell me what your favorite Halloween costume as a kid was! Did you ever go as the same thing more than once? In elementary school, I would always alternate between dressing as a pig or as a nurse—not sure what that says about me but it seems about right :p)
> 
> Also:
> 
> A video detailing the Iron Man suits through the years, which was like, my entire research for this fic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o98GK7Z-7pY
> 
> A really cool video in which someone creates a replica arc reactor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtz1k7hlaDk


End file.
